This invention relates generally to a heating unit and more particularly to a highly efficient heating unit fired with relatively inexpensive non-petroleum based fuels which is capable of capturing substantially all of the heat produced by combustion of such fuel and directing it in a preselective manner to heat water, dry clothes, heat human habitats or heat pumps for storage as dictated by the exigencies of the moment.
Of course, the concept of utilizing a fire chamber through which pass water pipes disposed in closed circuit with strategically disposed radiators and the like to heat homes and buildings is well known as demonstrated by so-called "hot water" and "steam" heating systems. Further, fuel combustion has been previously used to heat air which in turn was transported through a home or office building in so called "forced-air" heating systems.
However, most of these systems with but few exceptions which will be discussed later, required the use of petroleum based fuels such as coal, fuel oil, charcoal, natural gas and the like which since the advent of the OPEC conspiracy has raised the cost of home heating and heat-needy home conveniences beyond the means of many who are on fixed incomes and all who are unemployed thus posing a serious health hazard to many people.
Those heating units which do not employ petroleum based fuels, that is, wood burning units suffered from the fact that many of the features desired for a home heating unit could not be obtained with wood burners because of the undesirable by-products inherently present in the combustion by-products of a wood fire. One major problem of a wood fire is the creation and accumulation of creosote and tars which inherently result from the burning of wood. These substances not only contaminate the environment into which they are expelled, they create adverse physiological reactions from humans who enter that environment. Further, the toxic and irritating nature of such by-products, when less than perfect combustion is obtained, has heretofore required the use of strong updrafts to force such combustion by-products up a flue and into the neighborhood atmosphere where, absent an inversion, it is diluted into an environment so that it can be tolerated. However such a system inevitably wasted a substantial amount of the heat generated by the fire. The useful vs. wasted heat ratio of such systems restricted their installation primarily to esthetic locations because the fuel efficiency was wasteful.
Nor were such systems, because of the smoky odors they generate, ever deemed useful for the drying of clothes or like operations because while society readily accepts a smoked odor in its hams and sausages, it rejects such an odor as offensive when associated with people and their clothing.
The present invention thus is directed to a heating unit which readily, indeed preferrably, uses wood as its fuel and which by the very nature of its structural interrelationship allows the heat combustion produced therefrom to be readily employed to provide hot water, dry clothes (in an odor free fashion) and warm the human environment without any of the unpleasantness or inefficiencies heretofore associated with and generally considered as unavoidable side-effects of wood burning furnaces and fireplaces. The unit is especially suited for though not limited to installation for heating mobile homes.